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India Test-Fires Cryogenic Rocket Engine

Posted by michael on from the stand-waaaaaay-back dept.

alphakappa writes "Wired News reports that India has successfully testfired a cryogenic rocket engine that can be used to 'launch high-altitude satellites, send a man to the moon -- or build intercontinental ballistic missiles'. The rocket which typically has to fire for 12 minutes during flight was fired for 17 minutes during ground testing. So are we gonna see competition in the moon race? Remember, India has already spoken about sending a mission to the moon and it has joined the Galileo consortium along with China."

5 of 256 comments (clear)

  1. Tech support by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    Is this because Dell wants a tech support center on the Moon?

  2. I, for one by Gothmolly · · Score: 3, Funny

    welcome our new cryogenic Indian overlords.

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    I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
  3. India and Pakistan walk into a bar... by RealProgrammer · · Score: 4, Funny

    I: We will be having giant-sized moon rocket now.

    P: You think you are becoming big shot with moon rocket now?

    I: We are becoming superpower now.

    P: You are not now.

    I: We are too now.

    P: We will be building bigger rocket now.

    I: You are not now.

    O: We are too now.

    I: All of your bases are belonging to us now.

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    sigs, as if you care.
  4. Cool! by Tim · · Score: 5, Funny

    Now we can outsource our space program!

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    Let's try not to let fact interfere with our speculation here, OK?
  5. Korolev and the leaking oxygen line by Latent+Heat · · Score: 3, Funny
    James Harford's "Korolev" talks about how Korolev held out for a kerosene-LOX (cryogenic usually means LH2, but LOX is cryogenic enough) ICBM while everyone else wanted to go with the storable UDMH-N2O4 fueled rocket, which Korolev disliked for the very corrosive and toxic chemicals, and which resulted in a horrific accident in which Nedelin, the military guy in charge of ICBM's and many workers died.

    Anyway, how do you keep a kerosene-LOX rocket on the pad on any kind of alert status (i.e. able to launch in some time less than several days of prep)? The idea was to keep it plugged in to a supply of LOX so as LOX boils off, you pump in more. In a test, they had a leak on a LOX feed line to the rocket, so one of the technicians, like, whipped it out and took aim at the leak -- that froze over and plugged the leak. I work with a fellow whose favorite expression is "running around peeing on all of those problems" and here is where someone did it for real.